There are many dangers of urban life but, up until now, getting executed for cell phone use was not one of them. This tragic event took place in North Korea where authorities captured, tortured and then executed a man for violating the country’s cell phone ban.

Jung, the man in question, was found guilty of calling a friend in South Korea.

He was initially captured by the police at his home and taken away. Soon afterwards, he was interrogated by police where he confessed about his phone activities. This included complaining to his friend about the terrible conditions in North Korea.

Soon afterwards, he was killed via firing squad for disobeying the law.

North Korea has stringent laws regarding cell phone usage. The authorities only allow folks to make national calls and even these ones are restricted to the Pyongyang area. Thus, there was a ban on making any international calls.

The state especially frowned upon any calls being made to its southern counterpart.

In the past, North Korea bigwigs have been known to roam the Chinese border in hopes of picking up cell phone usage.

In these cases, they were secret police officers who used cell phone signal detectors that in turn, which helped them pinpoint anyone chatting away on a cell phone.

What a senseless and heinous waste of human life. People in this world are becoming inhuman. I don't know how these people can rationalize this in their heads. It makes me sick. Governments should not have ultimate authority over human rights. My heart aches for the poor people trapped in that twisted country. What a miserable life. A modern day Hitler mentality.

Well, if you're wondering how North Korea can rationalize this… I'm guessing that they want to control what information about Korea gets out of the country. In one of the links, cell phone usage was described as a 'security risk', so maybe the North Korean government was afraid of espionage from their own citizens. That, or they're doing much more heinous acts than this, and they want to keep it under wraps.

We would probably have invaded NK by now and installed some real order in that ass backwards country, except that China is protecting them. Obviously we can’t afford to lose such a cheap source of labor. -.-

This type of behaviour is sad, it makes me feel depressed that i live in a world where goverments have the power to kill people even when they admit to a "crime" no one deserves to die just because they want to talk with their friends.

it's very sad to think of what the citizen's of NK's think about the outside world, hailing their president/ leader as their god when they are shunned by modern technology such as this and god knows what else. I surely hope one day this country will change for the better and soon. Killing someone for making a phone call? I understand they have a long term gripe with SK, but killing is never an option. Totally inhumane, that's for sure…..